Paralympics boost disabled access to bus and Tube

London's Tube and bus services are to be upgraded to make them more wheelchair friendly as a legacy of the Paralympics.

Transport chiefs will spend £18 million to make all bus stops accessible to disabled and older passengers, and drivers will be trained to help disabled people board services. Step-free access will be introduced to 28 Tube and Overground stations over the nest decade.

Manual boarding ramps to help wheelchair users onto trains, introduced at 16 Tube stations for the Games, will remain in place.

TfL said the Paralympics had made it change its approach to disabled users, who make 1.3 million daily journeys in London.

Transport for All director Faryal Velmi welcomed the plans but said: “There is a frustrating lack of ambition on stepfree access. Seven years after TfL pledged that a third of Tube stations would be stepfree by 2013, disabled people are being told to wait another decade.”